Animation Source Forums

Well, the companies used to focus on the most important : make a GOOD story that could appeal to the whole family, and then, see how the crowd reacts to it.

Now, these shows are studied to "please" very specific categories. (let's take Kick Buttowski as an example) It's made for the "7-12 years old boys" crowd of nowadays.
This is something they didn't do before (studying the market, organize viewing sessions...) and that doesn't help to bring higher quality - not at ALL!
These kids "naturally" prefer this sort of shows : no brain, comedy, sports / danger, carefree, "funny-looking", no hidden message / lesson. They don't care about shows that take longer to "get in", but are much more rewarding and interesting afterwards.

When they'll grow up a bit, they will see them as digusting/marketing shows too which lacks creativity, story, good design etc... but for now, they'll just find that "awesome".

I wish that the parents would pay a little attention at what their kids are watching, instead of just letting them view anything and everything. To me that sort of show seem dangerous for the mental health of children. They will not develop good values and instead will think that "daredevil rocks".

Finally, I would also blame the lack of choice...

Sadly this is very true, I've seen it in many kids that are my friends,and I don't think they'll ever really stop liking shows like these, in fact they'll probably be the first ones to watch this show.

Bingo! You just explained the difference between the original Disney and the new Disney today: The job vs. the demographics. The only people who win in demographics are lawyers , parent groups and execs who have no idea that they are doing a job of entertainment which is what business Disney is supposed to be in.



And the problem with that is; parent hold the purse and the say. And considering that parents have this attitude of not being told what to do by people like us; it's going to continue. They think their child is so special; when they really are not. Ironically; TaleSpin has no moral high ground when it comes to dare devil stunts. The show's premise is in the sky where death is teased to death to pardon the expression. The difference here is TaleSpin does the job of entertainment for all instead of a select demographic. And does a pretty good job of it. It's more than the stunts or spots; it's built on character and a sense of balance (both in comedy and in adventure; along with some drama). With Kick; as Maxie Zeus stated in his review on Toonzone: Kick starts at 11 and keeps going at 11; and basically becomes nothing but white noise at 11. In other words; it's all a one note gimmick at 11 without building it up to justify the stunts. And that's why it's considered so terrible.

Well, I also read the ToonZone review, which confirms my opinion...

http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/3 ... i-lame-ass

I always say that "at least they can't do anything worse" - but they always surprise us...

And at the same time :


I guess it's not going to change anytime soon...

I have seen so many commercials for "Kick Buttowski" And all I can say is...

YUCK!

The animation... stupid

Character designs, Ugh.

Is there even a STORY?

Characters, no personality...

I have never watched it, and never will.

What happened to disney's GOOD shows? All off them suck now.

They could at LEAST use good designs and make them LOOK human instead of some weird creature.

And they could of put some kind of story too!

Disney is going DOWN HILL.

How can there be shows like "Kick Buttowski" When there are movies like "The princess and the frog"? Both are brand new.

In other words; Disney is content with less than a million viewers per episode for a cartoon; compared to 1990 when TaleSpin sometimes had five times as many viewers per episode (the average was closer to 4 million viewers for TaleSpin I should note and it's cable rating share was 11.4 which was second to TMNT and fourth in syndication overall. Disney XD is considered a fourth place cable cartoon channel by many which indicates how really terrible DTVA is right now.). I know I'm comparing syndication to cable; but Disney should be ashamed for flaunting these numbers as a sign of progress.

I watched the first minute of the episode Stumped on Youtube (which was the entire fight between Kick and his brother) and nearly every move they did was a bodily fluids joke (the wet willy finger for example; although the helm splitter was cute for a wedgie joke) complete with the Fairly Oddparents style of blow (the one where they put the name in bold letters for as to see; the kind of jackhammering that I detest); and it ended with Kick losing despite actually doing some moves that were classy and believable; with the brother grabbing him down and farting in his face (called the tear jerker which I felt Disney was above doing such obvious cracks at drama since Eisner's departure) complete with green smoke. Then the brother throws Kick in his room for no real reason I can think of (other than he is a dead ringer to evil Viki from Fairly Oddparents) and then we go to a scene where Kick's fat sidekick is floating in midair surrounded by rings from some cult. Huh?! What is the point of that? And Kick's voice makes Kick sound like a midget by the way as he tried to get out by headbutting the door; but it fails. Just like the show. Good bump from Kick though which would have been better without the helmet to pad the blow as required by BS&P.

I pretty much gave up after that and went on to something else on Youtube.

It's basically trash etertaining kids who like wacthing cartoon characters attempt dangerous stunts that only fools would od in real life, any chance Disney has of fixing that might be gone now.

Well from what I understand, it's a more general problem in the USA : nowadays only cable channels show cartoons, no more syndication on public channels. I suppose this makes it difficult to create animated series with high budgets. We have a bit the same problem here in France (well, since the Disney Channel was created actually - the good Disney series used to air on the public channel, now you have to pay to see their horrible series, most being live ones...)

So in such situation, would it be possible for them to create better quality animated series? But why did they stop doing syndication in the first place? Apparently it still works, for live action at least (ex : ABC's Legend of the seeker series)

By the way, what is your source for the Talespin ratings? Do you have ratings by episode? (that could be interesting to see)

Sadly; my sources were from Usenet and anything before 2000 has been wiped clean from the records (or as they say; disappeared down the memory hole.). For reference; here are the three numbers I did manage to find:



This is from my website I should note. The more recent airings of TaleSpin (back when Toon Disney was still around) were only around 0.1-0.2 at the most.

Now I think it's irrelevant which way they do quality shows weither it's cable, broadcast, syndication, whatever. It still shows that Disney is quite content with having less than 1/3 of the viewership for animation compared to 20 years ago. I just don't buy that Disney is progressing in the television animation area; as much as Iger would love to state that they are starting to bring 2D animation back.

I might try getting through Kick Buttowski again at some point. However; it's going to be an uphill climb to convince me that this show is the future of DTVA.

Ouch, that's a huge drop. But I think they also aired it at times when no one is before the screen, and I suppose they didn't do anything to advertise it either.


I don't think anyone said that; to me it seems the complete opposite. They ARE progressing on the feature side though. (thanks to Lasseter...) If only they could do the same...or at least TRY.

lol are they supposed to be fish or what?
Disney are stooping lower and lower year after year

I went and did it...I got through Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil's first two shorts and I am stunned and my brain fried...

http://www.angelfire.com/moon2/cloudkic ... KBS00.html

Let's see my ten short thoughts on it:

[1.] Frontal nudity with only Kick's fist and rose petal covering the naughty parts.
[2.] I was cheering Brad Buttowski the whole time and he is supposed to be a heel.
[3.] The Brianna angle creeped me out.
[4.] Kick does nothing for 90% of the shorts; the other 10% was merely to bump.
[5.] Gunther only did two sports that made me laugh: smashing the ironing board in his face, and tickling himself under the armpit while shooting milk from his nose.
[6.] How many times did I say teleport and vainglorious in that rant again?
[7.] How many cast and crew members had My Gym Partner's A Monkey on their resume?
[8.] The writer of the short also directs? And the creator and main writer of the first three or so shorts have not done a cartoon in their lives? Am I watching the animation equalivant of Hal Warren?
[9.] I gave up on counting the logic breaks within a minute of watching this.
[10.] The only thing saving me from this was Disney's control freakness and therefore the four remaining shorts will probably never be done due to copyright. Thank you Disney for small favors. Too bad Kick is now on the same level as Dave The Barbarian in terms of terribleness. On the other hand; it's no worse than the worse episodes of Ducktales and Rescue Rangers and better than the worst episodes of Darkwing Duck and even Quack Pack. At least at this point.

Heaven help me if I decide to come back when Youtube has the next shorts on tap that this doesn't turn into a negative quality fest.

The first week of May cannot come fast enough for me.

Oh goody! Kick Buttowski is getting renewed for a second season:

http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/3 ... ond-season

What lesson have we learned here folks? You can get renewed despite only having a 0.7 rating. TaleSpin usually had a 0.2 rating at this point when it was on Toon Disney and it was 18+ years old at that point. Although you won't see new episodes until the Spring of 2011. Ah; biscuits! I was hoping for some action this fall. Now when is Family Channel Canada going to run the show so I have an excuse to tape it and mock the show?

Oh; and I was being sarcastic on the goody part.

GREAT NEWS! Oh, wait...

Related to this : as much as most people would like Disney to come back to their classic animation style, maybe the reason they aren't doing it is because...they CAN'T?

I mean : it's obvious that the Disney Afternoon series had very high budgets for TV series when they were made. In the 80's, Eisner had said he didn't want Disney to produce TV series that would hurt the company's image, so they put a lot of care to the animation. Jymn stated that the cost to produce one Talespin episode was around 0.5M-1M$ each, which was HUGE for the time. That makes at least 30-40M$ for the entire series. (that was the budget of The Little Mermaid !!!)

I certainly don't think that Phineas & Ferb or Kick Buttowski have such high budgets. (or else you would really have to wonder where they are putting the money : it can't be on the cheap Flash animation or the quickly-written scripts...)

Syndication also helped a lot to bring more money - I don't live in the US but it seems syndication for animated series is pretty much dead.

Also, during the 80's - 90's, I think it was easier to produce animation overseas for cheap. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling some things have changed...(such as the economic rise of China...) Why have all companies stopped doing DTV animated films? (or pretty much) I'm sure it has something to do with it.

Anyway - even it if was a valid point, that would still not explain why they tend to bury them as deep as they can, not to ever touch them again. (yes, I know, there are the Darkwing duck and some Ducktales comics to be released, but that's another company who decided that - not Disney themselves)
I also still don't understand why they didn't make any efforts to "maintain" these series like they do with their animated films. Especially considering they had similar budget and similar success at the time. People tend to forget that the DA series were also a big part of the Disney Renaissance...

The problem goes back to the problems with Disney in general. Disney is not a entertainment company; they are a demographics company. Kick Buttowski's animation problems are not because Flash is cheap; it's because they treat Flash as an excuse to continue with their bullcrud without their shareholders criticizing their decisions. Flash is a tool; when used effectively; it can be as good as cel animation. The reason why people think Flash sucks is because Disney doesn't have the talent nor the foresight to create wonderful worlds anymore. When you only care about a certain demographic; then the talented need not apply. It's execs and parents groups who rule the roost. Kick Buttowski is a terrible world that I could care less if it blows up the next day. TaleSpin's world on the other hand.....



It's because they listened to the critics who claimed the show sucked instead of listening to their audiences for approval. That is a mark of a demographics. Even worse; Disney believed that critics were better because Eisner was marketing to a certain demographic with TaleSpin (6-12 year olds - Don't believe me; see the toy market for the series as poor as it was) and kids were considered morons in their view. Insulting; yes, but that's what Eisner thought of the series. It's too bad the creators were caught in the middle of this; they just wanted to do their job of entertainment. Jymn Magon is no artist; nor does he claim to be and yet he might become a legend in the television animation business anyway if he didn't lose his spirit with the Quack Pack debacle.

It's not that Disney cannot create great shows again; it's because they don't want to since doing so would contradict their mission of demographics. I'm glad there is a TaleSpin Virtual Season being planned because if anyone needs to teach Disney about creating wonder; it's TaleSpin fans.